The (Not So Fine) Fine Art of The Pun

The Daily Shows John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman, his co-host on the podcast, The Bugle, discuss Zaltzmans awful but perhaps awfully amazing skill at crafting puns

You might think that being the best thing about The Daily Show would be fairly exhausting. But somehow, John Oliver has found time in the past four years to put out a weekly podcast called The Bugle with his ginger-nut friend and writing partner, Andy Zaltzman.

The Bugle ("Audio Newspaper for a Visual World") is absurd, funny and smart, a sort of shaggier Daily Show. Oliver is hilarious, as you'd expect, and so is Zaltzman; but once in a while, for perverse reasons only he can know fully, Zaltzman gives the finger to centuries of progress in the comedic arts and, to Oliver's mounting rage, indulges in painfully long ercises in the lowest form of humor—the pun.

Sometimes the puns are so obscure that Zaltzman has to explain them—violating a second rule of comedy—such as when he barraged a dumbstruck Oliver with 25 puns on the rivers of North Korea. More recently, Zaltzman strung together 31 dog-related puns in a long, surreal story about Lou Reed and his wife, Laurie Anderson, playing a concert for dogs. (Zaltzman, with barely repressed glee: "I bet Lou Reed's wife couldn't believe it when he broke the news to her that they were going to do this concert. I mean, she mastiff had to pinscher self." Oliver, moaning in pain: "Oh, no. Oh, no. I think I can see what's happening here…") This went on for five minutes.

To get to the bottom of Zaltzman's strange affliction, GQ got in touch with Oliver and the man himself: the ginger cringer, the Paganini of puns, the planet's premier practitioner of paronomasia…Andy Zaltzman.

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John Oliver: I think puns are not just the lowest form of wit, but the lowest form of human behavior.

Andy Zaltzman: That sounds like the jealousy of a man who's never come up with a decent pun in his life.

Oliver: We're supposed to have evolved past them, just like we got opposable thumbs. We're supposed to not be doing puns any more. Andy's like a Colonial Williamsburg for humor.

Zaltzman: John's in America now, so he's not exposed to as many puns as he used to be. He's got a slightly lower tolerance. Tim Vine, the British comedian, is the current king of puns.

Oliver: I think that's a terrible thing to say about a human being.

Zaltzman: It's our patriotic duty, as Brits, to sustain the position of the pun in an increasingly competitive and modernized marketplace.

Oliver: Andy's never happier than when he's sitting down forcing puns into an obscure series of references. It's meditative for him. But I think, Oh no, it's happening again. I can usually hear it from the second pun, and if there's glee in his voice, I realize, We're going to be here for a while.

Zaltzman: It starts with one or two, but once you get onto the tenth in a minute, an element of hysteria and desperation sets in.

Oliver: It become physically painful for me. I have a physical reaction. My chest tightens, my pulse goes up and I feel like I'm under attack.

Zaltzman: In John's voice there's a mixture of desperation and professional admiration. But you can only really hear the desperation.

Oliver: It's incredulity—you cannot believe when he's four minutes into one of these—just thinking about how much work has gone into it. When you're thinking, This is a father of two. This is not how, when you're a child, you picture your parents making a living, thinking of dog puns.

Zaltzman: He's running scared. He's afraid to let them into his life for fear of what he may become.

Oliver: The moment I accept that there's an artistic, redeeming quality in puns, I have a horrible feeling I'll get hooked. I generally put my hands in front of my face. I've left the studio before when he was doing them.

Zaltzman: Puns are not all I do. The Bugle is not just puns. Let me make that clear. There's also a lot of nonsense involved.

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